One can scarcely imagine a speaker at a meeting of a county medical society discussing the possible elimination of some disease by public health measures, and then qualifying his observations by the statement that many practitioners make a living out of treating the disease in question; and that unless the physicians are vigilant to prevent the adoption of such measures, this source of business will be taken from them.Yet speakers at barassociationmeetings arefrequently heard tomake similar observations about the effect of proposed reforms.

-Sutherland, ArthurJr
  'A New Society and an Old Calling,' in the Cornell Law Quarterly.

These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favourites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities and eminent services; of instructing princes to know their true interest by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people: of choosing for employment persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive, and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth.

-Swift,Jonathan
  Gulliver'sTravels,'A Voyage to Laputa, etc.'ch.6.

There was a poor poet named Clough, Whom his friends all united to puff, But the public, though dull, Had not such a skull As belonged to believers in Clough.

-Swinburne, Algernon Charles
  Essays and Studies,'MatthewArnold'.

I grow in worth, and wit, and sense, Unboding critic-pen, Or that eternal want of pence, Which vexes public men.

-Tennyson
  Poems,'WillWaterproof's Lyrical Monologue', stanza 6, l.41^4.

Of all journals, and of all writers, those will obtain the largest measure of public support who have told the truth most constantly and most fearlessly.

-TheTimes
  Leading article, 6 Feb.

La presse exerce encore un immense pouvoir en Ame¤  rique. Elle fait circuler la vie politique dans toutes les portions de ce vaste territoire. C'est elle dont l'½il toujours ouvert met sans cesse a'   nu les secrets ressorts de la politique, et force les hommes publics a'   venir tour a' tour compara|"tre devant le tribunal de l'opinion. C'est elle qui rallie les inte¤  re"  ts autour de certaines doctrines et formule le symbole des partis; c'est par elle que ceux-ci se parlent sans se voir, s'entendent sans e"  tre mis en contact. The presshas enormous power in America.It isthe press that circulates political life through all parts of this vast territory. Its eye is always open, and making known the secret springs of politics, thus forcing public men to appear before the tribunal of public opinion. It is the press which rallies the interests of the community round certain principles and forms the creed of different parties. Through the press these parties can speak to each other without seeing each other, can listenwithout meeting.

-Tocqueville, Alexis Charles Henri Cle¤  rel de
^40  De la De¤  mocratie en Ame¤  rique (Democracy in America), vol.1, pt.2, ch.3.

Un journal est un conseiller qu'on n'a pas besoin d'aller chercher, mais qui se pre¤  sente de lui-me"  me et qui vous parle tous les jours et brie'  vement de l'affaire commune, sans vous de¤  ranger de vos affaires particulie'  res. A newspaper is an adviser whom one does not need to seek out, but one who comes of his own accord and speaks to you every day, briefly, of public affairs, without disturbing you from your own.

-Tocqueville, Alexis Charles Henri Cle¤  rel de
^40  De la De¤  mocratie en Ame¤  rique (Democracy in America), vol.2, pt.2, ch.6.

Un poe'  me n'est jamais acheve¤  öc'est toujours un accident qui le termine, c'est-a'  -dire qui le donne au public. A poem is never finished; it is always an accident that puts a stop to it, that gives it to the public.

-Vale¤  ry, Paul
  Litte¤  rature.

He speaks to Me as if I were a public meeting.

-Victoria in full  Alexandrina Victoria
Of Gladstone. Attributed in G W E Russell Collections and Recollections.

We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place.

-Warren, Earl
  Ruling to declare segregated schools unconstitutional, 17 May.

[Alexander Hamilton] smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the public credit, and it sprang upon its feet.

-Webster, Daniel
  Speech, NewYork,10